The last thing I was expecting from a radical feminist blog post/philippic on lapdancing was a beautiful new word.

caliginous: “misty, dark”

Where has this word been all my life? The existence of ‘tenebrous’ was gift enough, but now this! I love you, English language! Et aussi le français, bien sûr—‘caligineux’ et ‘tenebreux’, vous voyez.

The internet sure does this often enough, but the final straw came from, of all things, Analog Science Fiction & Fact Magazine! If I can’t expect them to keep mathematical terms separate from non-mathematical terms, who can I trust?

You see, discrete means separate, distinct, noncontinuous. Discreet means prudent, modest, cautiously silent. When someone says a person is ‘discrete’, I have a vision of that person scattered across a Cartesian plane in pieces. Please, save me from gory geometrical visions! Use these words correctly!

I am addicted to tea. This I know. I have this idea that, just perhaps, taking down my canisters of tea one after another just to sniff their contents and enjoy the secure and comfortable way the tins close is not normal.

But as addictions go, the costs are easy to control, and it actually benefits my health, so I refuse to give it up. The problem is that it grows. I must try new kinds of tea, and I am almost always unwilling to part with an old kind of tea. I prefer to add to my repertoire rather than maintain it at any given size. Recently I’ve ordered a few ‘Sip by Sip samplers’ from Republic of Tea, and picked up some other samples from the bulk tea section at New Seasons. This gives me access to more varieties than my usual habit of going to my favorite tea shop and smelling tins until I like something. Also, it doesn’t require me and my wallet to go to my favorite tea shop.

The problem? As hinted above, once I have any sort of tea or tisane in my house that I like even a bit, it’s hard to imagine NOT being able to brew that particular tea or tisane on demand. I already more or less monopolize two cupboards with tea stuff. How much more can the kitchen hold?

I want a car-horn that plays the scary beasty-noise from Lost. Then I will honk when people in black clothes run out in front of my car in the rain. Run, fools! The jungle is angry!

Internet, we need to talk again.

Withdrawal is a word which means “the act of taking back or away something that has been granted or possessed,” “removal from a place of deposit or investment,” “the discontinuance of administration or use of a drug,” “retraction,” “revocation,” MANY MANY THINGS.

Not one of those things can be said to be meant by the word ‘withdrawl’. The only thing ‘withdrawl’ means is that legions of grammar and spelling pedants (and we are legion indeed) just lost one more millimeter of tooth enamel, and that somewhere, for a split second, someone wanted to hit you with a cricket bat.

Withdrawal, people. With-draw-AL.

From the pages of wikipedia:

Terminology
Fowler’s Modern English Usage states that “the only acceptable plural in English is octopuses”, and that octopi is misconceived and octopodes pedantic. Octopi derives from the mistaken notion that octōpūs is a second declension Latin noun, which it is not. Rather, it is (Latinized) Greek, from oktṓpous (ὀκτώπους), gender masculine, whose plural is oktṓpodes (ὀκτώποδες). If the word were native to Latin, it would be octōpēs (‘eight-foot’) and the plural octōpedes, analogous to centipedes and mīllipedes, as the plural form of pēs (‘foot’) is pedes. In modern, informal Greek, it is called khtapódi (χταπόδι), gender neuter, with plural form khtapódia (χταπόδια).

Merriam-Webster and other dictionaries accept octopi as a plural form. The Oxford English Dictionary lists octopuses, octopi, and octopodes in order of descending frequency of use. The term octopod (either plural octopods and octopodes can be found) is taken from the taxonomic order octopoda but has no classical equivalent. The collective form octopus is usually reserved for animals consumed for food.

I am totally flabbergasted. I have been using ‘octopi’ (though blessedly not on this website) for years! I guess I had better use ‘octopodes’, because it says ‘octopodes’ is pedantic, and I can never pass up pedantry.

There are words — useful words, impressive words — that I have learned a dozen times and continue to forget. Sometimes I only half-forget them, but the result is the same. I must look them up to be certain of their meanings and attendant implications. Here is today’s:

ontological: to do with theories about the nature of being or what exists and the metaphysics appertaining thereto; or “relating to or based upon being or existence”.

You mightn’t think this word comes up a lot; but you mightn’t be an English major then. Many of my never-rememberable words are in the field.

Perhaps it’s bad form to rag on a site whilst embedding a bit of blasted html code for their spiders, but Technorati really toasts my cheese sandwich. I thought it might be worth poking them into realizing this blog, while neglected, is not SIXTY-ONE DAYS neglected, especially as someone very cool, whose book you should buy, told me she’d run across Faerye Net via Technorati before she ever met me.

So, with an uncomfortable feeling of conformity, I tried to create a Technorati account. I filled in the fields, as one does, and pressed ‘submit’ as one does. It spat me back to the account-creation page without any error messages, and I finally realized that that apparently meant I had made an account. I decided to try using the site from Windows, as perhaps my Macintosh was confusing their brains and causing them to spit me back to account creation as a way of welcoming me into the fold. But no, I found, spitting you back places is pretty much what Technorati wants to do; while using my Windows computer, the site logged me off if I looked at it funny, or if, more accurately, I tried to ‘claim’ my blog, look at my account, or do anything besides look at the overbusy main page or the first help page. If I ever see their blasted account creation page again, I may defenestrate someone or something. This occurred in Internet Exploder as well as in Firefox. Oh, and did I mention that no matter how carefully I type my password, it spits me back to the account creation page 8 times out of 9? I suppose it’s possible that my computer is just not cool enough, but, sheesh. It’s been rebuilt so often it’s practically bionic. I guarantee it’s cool enough for you, old man.

So now I’m back on the Mac, which seems to be able to take part in at least the first steps of ‘blog claiming.’ Though now I feel I’m demeaning myself by jumping through their hoops. So here, Technorati, here’s your pound of flesh: Technorati Profile. Rasserframmit.

P.S. That sound you hear is my teeth grinding as they log me off another sixteen times and change their mind about whether I’ve claimed a blog or not. They can’t decide! It’s so complicated being a website! Oh noes!

For a while now, I’ve been struggling with the concept of ‘hate crimes,’ as used in American law. Part of my problem is described in the linked wikipedia article — it’s one of the areas of jurisprudence which gets most involved with the mindset of the criminal — not just whether he* planned the murder or knew what he was doing, but why he did it. It’s a fraught question, because it is nebulous and requires the court to ultimately know the killer’s motives, perhaps better than he does himself. There is also the issue of thoughtcrime — most of us don’t like the prospect of being prosecuted for thoughts, even if those thoughts are, in the case of hate crimes, pretty vile.

That, I don’t think, is quite enough to throw out the concept of ‘hate crime’ as an aggravating factor or separate charge entirely. But one thing I find particularly problematic about the ‘hate crime’ label is inconsistencies in how it is deployed. For one thing, I think the legal defense “gay panic” is pretty much an admission of hate crime, not a defense against it, but that’s not my main point here. My main point is that certain groups aren’t protected. Particularly, women.

Until today, this thought process of mine about hate crimes and women ended: “Aren’t most serial killers motivated by an irrational hatred of women? Why the hell aren’t they being prosecuted for hate crimes?” Well, today we have a new standard: A gunman enters a school, has all the boys leave, and starts shooting girls. (Not to be confused with the Colorado school shooting/hostage crisis last week, where the gunman chose certain (mostly blonde) girls as hostages and sexually assaulted them.) Of course, the gunmen in both cases are dead. That’s pretty much par for this particular course. So we won’t find out if any DA would consider prosecuting this as a hate crime. But I have a feeling that if the killer had let all the white schoolchildren out of a mixed-race classroom and started shooting at the remaining children, there would be no question.

Should ‘hate crime’ legislation be used to prosecute such a criminal, if we manage to catch one alive? Or is the entire ‘hate crime’ designation too nebulous to remain in the body of American law? I am most certainly not a lawyer, and I really don’t know. It all just makes me tired and sad. What do you think, reader?

* I use the male pronoun throughout. At first, I used ‘he/she’, but by the time I got to ‘himself/herself’, it had become ridiculous. Not all criminals are male, not all killers are male. I am adopting ‘he’ for ease of use.

Peaceful coexistence!